As you may have noticed, I love doing scrappy backs for quilts, sometimes I sort of plan what I want to do, sometimes I just go for it and sew pieces together, here’s a few ideas of how to plan a quilt back.
Often long arm quilters want the backing to be at least 8” bigger than the top. So I have one top that’s square and measures 47”, so the back should be 55” x 55”
For this one I’m starting the backing as a BLOCK in EQ- this way I can draw lines and play around with a layout.
Now I’m using scraps from half yard chunks so that takes a bit more math, but at least because the backing is less than 60” then it’s 1.5 widths of fabric strips to cover that! (40” + 20”)
and if I have half a yard that’s 18” and want to do the same on the left and right, I’d need 3 strips total ( 1.5 x 2) and normally I’d cut a bit less than 6” maybe 5 1/2” just because fabrics are rarely cut straight and then shrinkage in the wash. And don’t forget the seam allowance!
here’s strips on the sides with a mark at the 40” mark
I then decided to add two more strips so the center will be less than 40”
and I made the strips 5” here, so cutting is 5.5”
really I could continue like this and then know that I’d need 9 or 10 sets of these to have the backing wide enough , 9 sets would = 54” and 10 sets would be 60”
Then I added two chunks at the top and bottom to be 16” wide, so each is less than half a yard.
Then I added another two chunks in the middle, each 8” so together that’s half a yard.
Then I could add small blocks in the middle, just to change it up!
It doesn’t really matter if these small blocks are the same width in this case, as long as they come together and are the same width as a WOF (The strips above and below)
So if making the backing, I would cut out the long pieces first above and below the middle and see how wide (or high in this case) I need the center blocks to be to make the 55” then piece all that together and then add the sides
Of course you can also make an easy back with yardage
If you make a new quilt and select vertical strip, you’ll see that the max width is 30”.
To change that go to quilt worktable options
and under strip quilt,change 30 to 50
Then you can go to strip #1 on the quilt and move the bar to 40” a width of fabric and then make it 55” long in my case
Then move the 2nd strip width bar to 15” and the quilt back will be 55 x 55”
Now EQ wants to pieces the big piece, but you’ll know that it’s just a long piece of fabric plus 15” (that would be pieced from 2 pieces)
and it’s easier to just use a calculator and do 55” x 2 and piece together (which is 3yds)
There’s lots of ideas on pinterest too!
I made a board if you want to follow it